1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a microtubular honeycomb carbon material obtained by heat-treating cellulose fiber, a production method thereof, a microtubular reactor module comprising the microtubular honeycomb carbon material and a method for producing the microtubular reactor module, and more particularly to heat-treating cellulose fibers, which are forest resources, to form a carbide having a new structure, and using the carbide as a catalyst support to construct a microcatalytic reactor system having a microtubular structure.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Recently, studies on the use of forest resources have been actively conducted, and particularly, there have been attempts to use forest resources to develop advanced new materials combined with nanotechnology (NT), biotechnology (BT) and environmental technology (ET).
Among examples of use of forest resources, the most remarkable technological development and application field is composite material technology employing cellulose fibers, and the development of environmentally friendly, high-performance composite materials is actively being pursued in various countries.
Recently, studies focused on producing nano-scale cellulose fibers and using the same to synthesize composite materials having improved mechanical properties have been conducted in advanced countries. Technology employing forest resources is also applicable to hybrid energy materials, adsorbents, electrodes and battery materials, in addition to the above-described composite materials.
However, studies on the use of forest resources still remain at an early stage even in advanced countries, and in Korea, there has been little or no development of technology relating to this field.
Patent applications relating to the field of use of forest resources have not shown a clear increase in the number thereof. However, in the trend of recent studies in USA and European countries, the number of studies has increased slightly since the year 2005, and it is considered that the development of technology relating to the use of forest resources will rapidly increase starting in the year 2010, when the demand for nano/bio-technologies and energy/environmental technologies is expected to increase rapidly.
Recently, studies on the field of microcatalytic reactor systems have been steadily conducted. For example, there is an embodiment in which microchannels are formed in a metal thin film and are coated with a catalyst, and the resulting thin film is applied in reactor systems for fuel cells or in heat exchangers.
Such microcatalytic reactor systems have been used in various fields, including fuel cell technology, hydrogen reformer systems and micro heat exchanger technology, so that these reactor systems can be applied to the fields of electronic parts and small-sized energy systems, and the application fields and markets thereof are limitless.
However, in the prior technology, there are problems in that processes required for completion, including a channel forming process, a catalyst coating process, a calcining process and a process of joining a metal thin film, having the microchannel formed therein, to a reactor system, are very complicated, and in that there are limitations to channel size and catalyst coating amount, because each of the channels consists of a short channel, and therefore, it is not easy to achieve the miniaturization and improvement in efficiency of the reactor system.
Furthermore, there has not yet been any report of a catalyst support produced using forest resources such as cellulose fiber, as disclosed in the present invention, a microcatalytic reactor system comprising the catalyst support, and related application technologies.